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Yep, fun!Trying to get back into concept art, industrial design more again, woohoo!Figured I am not knowledgeable enough when it comes to designing functional, purpose oriented stuff. 'Tactical recon fighter', does this sound like a classification a kid came up with? ._. The wings look lame but I like the rest All done in Photoshop.

Well, I finally got up off my lazy butt and started building the RC version of this plane. I had to make the top and front views based on the side view, it wound up being longer than I thought and I had to tweek it a bit to get it to look right. Instead of the simple foamy style, I am going for a full bodied version made of foam board. I had to use a bit of artistic license to get it to look right and still be easy enough to build a functional model out of.

It is being constructed from 6mm foam, 3mm foam, and Dollar Tree foam board, it will wind up being about 50.8 inches long (not including the blade/antennae thing on the nose). It is planned to be powered by an e-flte 370 with a 2200 mAh 3-cell battery.

It looks like I am going to have to add conventional canards up front to keep it stable though, I'll try to make them look like they match.

Some parts are drying now, once the primary hull is finished I'll either post some pics on DA or start a build thread on RCGroups.

Hmm, well the engines are pretty far back, but with the heavy cannon on the nose and the wings set so far back, it shouldn't be too tail heavy to fly.Any change in pitch or yaw is going to be sluggish with the decentralized weight, but the short wings will give it very high roll rate. It could probably pull a snap-roll or barrel-roll really well. Also the large stabilizers with a little nose weight will make it fly straight and fast.Looks like it would be fantastic for rapid response ground support, it could buy time for heavier ground support to arrive.As someone who does radio controlled airplanes, I'm tempted to make a 'foamy' based on this and see how it really preforms.

...huh, ya know what. I got 3 sheets of 6mm foam sitting next to my dryer. If you've got some plan views showing it from the top, side, and front, I can see if it can be converted. I been looking for a quick but unique project anyway.

It's so long, may have to go for a 28-30 inch wingspan to keep it stable. As a foamy, an E-Flite 400 or equivalent with a pusher prop should get it moving fairly fast.

Well, I know it's been a while (life happens) but I finally got to doodling a few ideas on how to turn this into an RC plane. I've got a big motor laying around so I could make one around 5 ft long.

I think I can give the main body just a bit of a wing shape to help reduce wing-loading making it fly a little better.

My only real serious concern is the long nose (assuming I go with a full body version), while its shape would give a lot of horizontal (Yaw) stability, without canards or something similar it may suffer from some vertical (Pitch) instability.

To counteract that I could add some clear plastic canards but Ive always felt like that was cheating. I could also make two of those tiny fins up front instead of one and angle them out sharply. Or alter the intakes under the canopy so that they don't stick out too much but the top or bottom blends into a horizontal plate that runs about halfway up the nose giving the impression of a leading edge shoulder like on the F-18, just a little less pronounced. What do you think?

I'll give you a lesson I suppose. By modern American Standards anything that is "Recon" would be oriented towards an overall stealthy design, and has been since the U-2, particularly from detection methods originating from below. On this design, the forward intake's positioning in particular would be considered a big no-no, while the intakes for the outboard engines would be considered decently placed with the wings shielding the radar hotspots from ground based radar. Additionally, in regards to evading ground based radar, inward angled stabilizers are a superior approach to outward angled.

Now as far as Fighters are concerned, you'll notice that the three large sized 5th Generation Fighters (F-22, Pak-Fa and J-20) place their radar hotspots (most notably intakes) on the bottom of the aircraft. This is to evade aerial based radar and to allow them to present them a radar dead-zone while maneuvering by exposing the top of their aircraft to the radar source. In otherwords, while the forward intakes are notably well placed, the outboard engines, the mere fact of being external being a no-no for fighter design, the intakes over potential shields against radar detection is particularly problematic. Outward angled stabilizers however, are a good choice for fighters since they provide superior maneuverability characteristics to both vertical and inward angled stabilizers.

I imagine that the forward intakes are indicative of either a a 3/4 engine design, or that the extra intakes are for a VTOL powerplant.

There are Fighter Aircraft that do get re-outfitted for recon duty going as far back as WWII (WWI was more Recon aircraft being re-outfitted for combat duty), but generally, if you are going to design an aircraft that performs a second duty along with being recon, you'd likely see it being a Recon/Attacker since an Attacker's ground oriented primary functions all benefit from the same "Vs Ground" orientation of radar evasion that a recon aircraft would benefit from. "Recon/Fighters" generally favor fighter characteristics since... like said before, they are re-purposed fighter aircraft.

Reconj and light fighter. I see this in the Starblazer univers, also in battletech, harlock or crusher joe timeline. As for the nose well it could be removable for mission specific items. It is well made including the wing.

All fighters are tactical. There's no such thing as a strategic fighter, unless we're talking about some super-plane that can turn invisible. It's like distinguishing between soldiers and commandos; the nature of their work is small-scale for both, but the application--and the effect--is extremely different.

Recon planes are generally distinct from fighters, though. It depends on the nature of the specialization. Nowadays, recon planes are recon planes; they carry a ton of electronics hardware so they can fly nap-of-the-earth and through canyons, and burn through any enemy electronic countermeasures, jamming, or targeting sensors. This makes them capable of flying through places other planes can't get to, and impossible to touch or see; however, they have little to no strike capacity of their own. They are really good at supplementing attack wings because of their electronics specialization and their ability to relay mission-critical information during combat. They're vulnerable sometimes but also force multipliers because they increase the effectiveness of the attack forces they fly in concert with, while decreasing the enemy's effectiveness.

There are recon planes that are also fighters, but this is generally an airframe that is very modular or universal, and the recon variant has weapons and targeting stripped for extra sensors, radar, and computing resources. The F-4 Phantom was used by all branches of the US military for about 20 years, most prominently in Vietnam; it is still flown by the Israeli Air Force (almost certainly the best in the world, plane-for-plane). It's good to look into it the design history of that plane to have a better understanding of what kind of airframe needs should be accounted for when designing a multi-role warplane. Important to note, however, that the F-4 was meant to be used and was designed for a fighter-bomber/air superiority role, and was only found in practice to be capable of a broader range of activities; so it was still supplemented in recon roles by specialized planes like the Intruder (specifically as the EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare variant, still in service) and the F-111 Aardvark.

Recent examples of multi-role warplanes are the Eurofighter Typhoon and F-35. I would pay more attention to the design behind the Typhoon than the Lightning II. A ton of drama and statistical squabbling surrounds the performance metrics and actual combat viability of the F-35 platform.

The Design is interesting, but it won't fit our planet thermodynamic laws! The breakings of its outerstructure will cause turbulent flows, and increase frictions while putting the load on the propulsion system. Of course, future designs are always a matter of energy supplies... So in this case, we could surmise that it use a very powerful source of energy, that helps the plane to carry on its flight minus the friction overload!

Still, why should we choose such design when it is so easy to avoid it? What are the military requirements that force such design constraints?

I know Japanese, and they wouldn't do anything useless unless needed! Still, it is an interesting design for a Manga, but true Manga won't use such designs.Still I enjoy it!

yeah i guess. I didn't want to constrain myself too much with aerodynamics etc. I think the most efficient plane designs have already been built. If you were to only consider technical aspects, this would end up looking like any other plane. But in sci-fi you can at least come up with designs that aren't restricted too much by physical laws because you can explain away stuff (e.g. powerful engine). In the end I just want to design something that looks cool and moreover different but doesnt have to necessarily work in our current world environment but could seemingly work in another.

I guess with the double intakes, even though the inner intake doesn't have a diverter, it could theoretically shut down when approaching supersonic speeds and switch to the outer engines if they are some form of ramjet.

Nice design you got there. Wing design is unusual for an atmospheric fighter craft, but I dig it; only thing I'd change is maybe their size and/or angle. Inboard weapon systems I'm willing to bet, akin to the F-22. Engine design I am a especially big fan of; love how you included the slight scoop effect into the main body before the engine itself.

Actually Professionalize the aircraft name. Create a Manufacturer name. Like Zo-Re Integrated Aerospace. X-4 (Identifies the aircraft airframe design) Now here comes the tricky part. This varies from country to country...and historical time. Germany. A0 is the pre-production run and prototypes. then A-1,A-2...etc. B is the next production batch. (Like Focke-Wulfe Fw-190 A-0, and Focke-Wulfe Fw-190 D-9.) Americans have a bad habit with vehicles labeling the new weapon the M1...(Like M1 Garand, M1 Abrams...etc. Then adding production tabs like M1A1, or M1A2 denoting production variants.) Now American aircraft designations are interesting. F-16, F/A-16...the lettering ahead of the number notes the primary mission type of the aircraft. F=Fighter. (although in the 1930's Pursuit and Fhotographic reconaissance.) [Note the SR-71 is an error...because Reagan read the RS (Recon Strategic) as SR.] U and X are usually given to prototype aircraft. B to Bombers. F/B-Fighter Bombers A-attack aircraft AH-Attack Helicopters. Each system denotes the aircrafts primary purpose. So the X-4 Viper RC...or RCX-4 Viper...or X-4RC Viper...or RC-4 Viper...Viper RC-4 (Viper Recon Type-4 or Production Level 4) depending on the way you would like to have the aircraft labeled and explain its purpose. So it could help you out alot with making the aircraft projects seem life-like and realistic. Although Umannich FX-76 Ausf B-1 type 5...is a little much. Unless its a special version...overly complex naming and categorization systems are unneccessary.